Jamille Bigio and Rachel Vogelstein
136 foreign affairs
male parliamentarians interviewed who had experienced violence said
that those acts undermined their ability to speak freely and uphold their
mandates. Consider, for example, the financial burden female candidates
and officials face in requiring unusually high levels of security in the form
of paid guards and protected facilities. In Kenya in 2017, some female
candidates chose not to hold meetings at night, thereby putting them-
selves at a severe disadvantage as compared to their male opponents. And
in the United Kingdom, nearly 100 percent of female legislators have
increased their security at home, compared with 75 percent of the men.BLANKETING THE BACKLASH
Much of this violence is driven by misogyny, a deep-seated pathology in
most societies and cultures that won’t be eliminated anytime soon. But
it is overly fatalistic to conclude that policy changes would be useless. In
fact, governments, international organizations, and technology compa-
nies can enact reforms that would help blunt the corrosive violence.
In 2011, the un General Assembly issued a declaration calling for zero
tolerance of violence against female candidates and elected officials; an
investigation by Dubravka Simonovic, the un’s special rapporteur on vio-
lence against women, followed in 2018. Regional bodies have also taken
up the issue: in 2015, the state parties to the Inter-American Convention
on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence Against
Women endorsed a proclamation that committed political parties, trade
unions, and social organizations to “create their own internal instruments
and mechanisms to prevent, punish and eradicate political violence and/
or harassment against women.” In response, several Mexican state agen-
cies developed a protocol to coordinate their efforts on combating such
violence, which has supported survivors in bringing and winning claims.
A growing number of countries have also taken steps to criminalize
violence against women in politics. Latin American countries have
taken up this issue, passing standalone laws and amending electoral
codes. In 2012, for example, Bolivia passed a law criminalizing political
harassment and violence against women; since then, the law has
increased consciousness and accountability on the issue. Other coun-
tries around the world should follow suit; new legislation is needed to
recognize the specific threats that female politicians and candidates face.
But legal reform is worth little if governments don’t enforce the
laws. Bolivia’s landmark legislation is a case in point: despite nearly
300 prosecutions, there has been just one conviction. Countries like